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Against Football: One Fan's Reluctant Manifesto Audiobook
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Publisher Description
In Against Football, Steve Almond details why, after forty years as a fan, he can no longer watch the game he still loves. Using a synthesis of memoir, reportage, and cultural critique, Almond asks a series of provocative questions:
- Does our addiction to football foster a tolerance for violence, greed, racism, and homophobia?
- What does it mean that our society has transmuted the intuitive physical joys of childhood—run, leap, throw, tackle—into a billion-dollar industry?
- How did a sport that causes brain damage become such an important emblem for our institutions of higher learning?
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“Narrator Peter Berkrot shapes the book with an emotional tone that reflects the author’s persuasive words…Berkrot conveys the author’s dilemma between his passion for the gridiron and the need to have a national conversation about its issues…Through attentive narration Berkrot helps make Almond’s case a worthy argument for serious fans to hear.”
— AudioFile
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“A devastating multipronged attack.”
— Newsweek -
“Almond is dead serious: Supporting a spectacle that causes brain damage is immoral.”
— New York Times Book Review -
“An unapologetic, frontal assault on the game’s role in American culture.”
— Los Angeles Times -
“Almond’s…wide-ranging argument that the time has come to abandon football—particularly but not exclusively the NFL—as a sport built on violence, racism, economic exploitation of poor kids, corrupt dealmaking with local governments over stadiums, and a willingness to find it entertaining to watch people suffer brain damage.”
— NPR -
“A book that’s part journalism, part memoir, part cultural harpooning.”
— Kansas City Star, a FYI Book Club selection -
“Powerful… Almond is a sympathetic narrator, his evidence incontrovertible, the moral authority firmly on his side.”
— Harper’s -
“Against Football is, at bottom, a love letter from a heartbroken fan, notable for his eloquence and clarity…A first-rate piece of journalism and a great read.”
— Portland Press Herald (Maine) -
“A powerful polemic.”
— Publishers Weekly -
“Comic, compassionate, and thought-provoking.”
— Kirkus Reviews -
Almond makes a convincing case for the theory that Americans have turned to football in order to meet spiritual needs that arose as a result of industrial and social progress.
— Publishers Weekly
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About Steve Almond
Steve Almond is the author of twelve books of fiction and nonfiction including the New York Times bestsellers Candyfreak and Against Football. His most recent novel, All the Secrets of the World, won an NEA grant. His short fiction has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize, and Best American Mysteries. In spring of 2024, Zando will publish his craft book, Truth Is the Arrow, Mercy Is the Bow.
About Peter Berkrot
Peter Berkrot, winner of Audie and Earphones Awards for narration, is a stage, screen, and television actor and acting coach. He has narrated over 450 works that span a range of genres, including fiction, nonfiction, thriller, and children’s titles. His audiobook credits include works of Alan Glynn, Eric Van Lustbader, Nora Roberts and Dean Koontz. In film and television, he appeared in Caddyshack, America’s Most Wanted, and Unsolved Mysteries. He performs in regional and New York theaters and directs the New Voices acting school.